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Privacy Watch 2020: Everyone Gets To Choose

Why in the U.S. do we place such a different value, a lower value, on privacy?

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I have not yet figured out a way to write about politics in a way that does not piss off friends on the other side of the aisle. I mean, look at the state of affairs in the country. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum — Democrat, Independent, Republican — I think everyone can agree that something is broken. You know what? I say vote them all out and start over.

But you know what subject is not a political to me? Privacy.

I have never fully understood why in the U.S. we place such a different value, a lower value, on privacy. Young people today seem hell-bent on displaying their entire lives on social media, they never hesitate to plug their personal or financial information in the latest app to purchase something, and some people have literally made a living out of having cameras in their homes.

Older Americans are not immune. Moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers, in a kind of odd attempt to keep up with young people, have taken to some of the same habits. I’m guilty of it too.

And I think I get it. The world has changed. We have all these new tools to communicate, to exchange our thoughts, promote stuff, and conduct the business of our daily lives. Tools that largely did not exist 25 years ago. So, some might say this is just a natural progression of societal needs or wants. This is the new normal.

But how did almost no one think that there might be some problems with this? That there may be consequences to the sacrifices we make on privacy?

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I’m not that old, and in many ways, I feel blessed to have lived through the transition from the analog to the digital world, but I remember a time when privacy seemed to have greater value in the U.S.

So, when the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a privacy framework last month, I was pleased to read it and even more pleased I could actually understand it. The NIST Privacy Framework: A Tool for Improving Privacy through Enterprise Risk Management is “a voluntary tool intended to help organizations identify and manage privacy risk so that they can build innovative products and services while protecting individuals’ privacy.”

The Privacy Framework, which does not have the force of law, is designed to enable organizations to prioritize their privacy protection activities and outcomes to address a diverse array of privacy concerns and develop more effective solutions that may lead to better outcomes for individuals and organizations.

According to the NIST website, the Privacy Framework is intended to be used by organizations of any type or size, and it is sector agnostic, meaning it does not matter if you’re in legal, manufacturing, services, or software. Current technology trends, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, are a little scary for privacy and security professionals. But the Privacy Framework, which is designed to be compatible with any legal or regulatory scheme, can provide some guardrails for development in these areas as well.

Privacy, I think, has become a choice. And everyone gets to choose. The question, then, becomes what you’re going to choose (or sacrifice) in order to maintain some semblance of privacy?

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Mike Quartararo

Mike Quartararo is the President of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), a professional member association providing training and certification in e-discovery. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery and a consultant providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@aceds.org. Follow him on Twitter @mikequartararo.

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